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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Talmek" data-source="post: 6711187" data-attributes="member: 74486">My group was 3rd level when they were ambushed while trying to make their way to a dwarven hall, rumored to have been part of a major gold vein worth MILLIONS. They had set out from the east (homebrew setting so geographical reference may vary) at one of the PCs' request to help a contact and they were ambushed just as they were making their way to the mountain range where the contact was located.As I posted in another <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469005-DMing-quot-Out-of-the-Abyss-quot/page5" target="_blank">thread</a> - I wouldn't discount the initial escape scene's difficulty to be too easy. When my group ran through it I had to modify the encounters somewhat, limiting them to 1-2 drow or elites at a time. This could have easily swung out of the PCs' favor, leaving all of them right back in the cell after being captured, again. I can't really speak to the following encounters after the escape, but this one could have absolutely been a TPK/ad nauseum repetition of escape attempts.I would increase the number of encounters per day to three, given the list of encounters that are in the table. Further, if you're looking for a solid list of monsters for the underdark to make your own encounters there's one listed by challenge rating and XP on page 305 of the DMG. You could find this helpful to provide some variation rather than only rolling on that single table.I actually decided not to have a group of NPCs twice the size of the core PC group following them around. I allowed a fair amount of roleplaying in the initial scenes once they regained consciousness, primarily to see who they would build relationships with. During the escape the drow began knocking down the NPCs and the players had to make some fairly difficult decisions for who they wanted to keep and who they were going to leave behind. This also allows me to reintroduce them later on if I need NPCs for the story! I wouldn't kill them outright, just re-capture them and use them as you see fit. It may make Ilvara and her crew seem incompetent, but good help must be even harder to find in the underdark...</blockquote>

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